Big Brother tax: US roads to be funded by tracked cars?

Black boxes installed on cars in the US may soon track all their movements to determine how much wear they cause to American roads and, thus, how much each owner should pay. Adoption of the scheme however is being held back by privacy concerns.

Maintaining roads in America currently relies on a gas tax, which
is paid by motorists as they fill their tanks at pumps. However
the cash flow is steadily drying up as cars become more fuel
efficient and with authorities reluctant to raise tax rates. The
advancement of hybrid and electric cars is also causing this
means of taxation to be perceived as unjust.

Taxing per mile is one possible solution, however, the federal
government is reluctant to proceed with it. A $90-million pilot
project involving some 10,000 cars was approved by the Senate two
years ago, but was axed by the House.

But some states are more enthusiastic. For instance California is
planning to tax every motorist in the state by mileage by 2025,
reported on Saturday Los Angeles Times.

“This really is a must for our nation. It is not a matter of
something we might choose to do," told the newspaper Hasan
Ikhrata, executive director of the Southern California
Association of Governments. "There is going to be a change in
how we pay these taxes. The technology is there to do it."

Oregon so far is the most eager. It launched a pilot vehicle
miles traveled (VMT) tax project as early as 2007 and currently
has 5,000 cars taxed by their mileage in a follow-up experiment.
A similar if smaller-scale test was conducted in Nevada, and New
York City is considering one.

Privacy concerns remain a big hurdle. A black box device tracking
mileage is usually not just a simple odometer, but a GPS-enable
device, which tracks the location of a car in real time. This
allows the use of different tax rates for different kinds of
roads, and also for the splitting of taxes fairly for drivers who
cross state borders. They can also be used for extensive
surveillance, privacy advocates warn.

"It would be fairly easy to turn these devices into
full-fledged tracking devices,” warned Nevada’s branch of the
American Civil Liberties Union as the trial was underway in the
state. “There is no need to build an enormous, unwieldy
technological infrastructure that will inevitably be expanded to
keep records of individuals' everyday comings and goings"

Some states want do address those fears by offering less-invasive
devices, which don’t use positioning to track mileage, or
offering to pay a state-average tax. Others believe they can
appease the fears by offering extra value to driver, allowing the
black boxes to provide "pay-as-you-drive" insurance, pay parking
meter fees, and warn of traffic jams.

There are alternatives to per-mile taxing, which would not
discriminate in favor of hybrids. For example money for road
maintenance could come from taxing tires.

A conservative approach would be to simply raise the gas tax and
replenish depleted road funds.

"There is no need for radical surgery when all you need to do
is take an aspirin," said Randy Rentschler from the
Metropolitan Transportation Commission in the San Francisco Bay.
"If we do this, hundreds of millions of drivers will be
concerned about their privacy and a host of other things."